In the electric power industry, a fence surrounding an electrical substation is connected to an underground grounding system. As a requirement, a fence gate also needs to be connected to the grounding system. To do so, mechanical clamps can be used to electrically couple a fence section to the fence gate. For example, one terminal of a flexible braid assembly is clamped to the post of the fence section and the other terminal of the assembly is clamped to the post of the fence gate, thereby providing a solid electrical path from the fence gate to the underground grounding system through the braid assembly. The flexible nature of the braid assembly allows the fence gate to move or rotate relative to the fence section without breaking the electrical coupling between the gate and fence section.
Currently, standard ground rod clamps or their variation are used to clamp the flexible braid and the like to cylindrical or other posts to sandwich the braid terminal between the post and the clamp. While the standard clamps do provide the necessary electrical bonding, the mechanical rigidity can vary greatly from one installation to another. Moreover, use of the standard clamps do not provide a way for the installers to maximize the mechanical rigidity of the connection or to consistently assemble them together in an easily repeatable manner.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a clamping device and method for clamping an electrical terminal to an electrically conductive post which provide high mechanical rigidity in an easily repeatable manner.